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A review by e_cunha
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
2.0
This is probably not a good read I would recommend. It had a few good parts that made it slightly redeemable and it made you want to see what happened at the end. The end was pretty lame with not much being resolved and just sort of leaving you hanging with vague hints of what is to come in the future of the world in the book. A lot of loose ends.
The first 75 pages or so I would say, were very boring; it was a struggle to get through them. There were many times in the book when the author would contradict herself for something she had said previously. The writing was also extremely predictable. Many of the events I saw coming, and all the "big reveal" secrets were not that secretive.
To be honest, none of the characters were really likable either. In many instances they are quite horrible and evil. In the beginning two of the main characters are portrayed as villains(Felicity and Pippa) and are hated by two other main characters(Gemma-the actual protagonist- and Ann), but within a few pages they are all best buddies. And when you've gotten to know them all, towards the end of the book, they do something completely evil and beast-like towards Gemma and it is never referenced to or mentioned at all in the rest of the book. I guess that was one part that surprised me, at that point I honestly thought the 3 others would turn into demonic consorts( or something like that) of the "Big Bad" character Circe. Throughout the whole book the author write, what I feel, are foreshadowings of Felicity falling into Circe's shadow/path and Gemma following her mothers, being the better person, more powerful, wanting to do good blah blah blah. And then it's like "Oh, let's perform a sacrifice to gain more power!" Same thing "Big Bad" did in the past. Suspicion, violence, animal murder, almost human murder, anarchy on Gemma ensues.
A few pages later "She's my friend and I love her." Blah blah blah.
One of the themes of the book is "everyone has damages" but to me, the characters were all just pretty horrible girls, with a few redeeming parts of Gemma and maybe Pippa.
All in all, not a book for me. I think maybe younger girls would like it. It just didn't sit with me as a well written book with developed characters. More like one of those tawdry YA romance supernatural novels, like those house of night books. Couldn't even make it through the first book of that series even in high school lol
The first 75 pages or so I would say, were very boring; it was a struggle to get through them. There were many times in the book when the author would contradict herself for something she had said previously. The writing was also extremely predictable. Many of the events I saw coming, and all the "big reveal" secrets were not that secretive.
To be honest, none of the characters were really likable either. In many instances they are quite horrible and evil. In the beginning two of the main characters are portrayed as villains(Felicity and Pippa) and are hated by two other main characters(Gemma-the actual protagonist- and Ann), but within a few pages they are all best buddies. And when you've gotten to know them all, towards the end of the book, they do something completely evil and beast-like towards Gemma and it is never referenced to or mentioned at all in the rest of the book. I guess that was one part that surprised me, at that point I honestly thought the 3 others would turn into demonic consorts( or something like that) of the "Big Bad" character Circe. Throughout the whole book the author write, what I feel, are foreshadowings of Felicity falling into Circe's shadow/path and Gemma following her mothers, being the better person, more powerful, wanting to do good blah blah blah. And then it's like "Oh, let's perform a sacrifice to gain more power!" Same thing "Big Bad" did in the past. Suspicion, violence, animal murder, almost human murder, anarchy on Gemma ensues.
A few pages later "She's my friend and I love her." Blah blah blah.
One of the themes of the book is "everyone has damages" but to me, the characters were all just pretty horrible girls, with a few redeeming parts of Gemma and maybe Pippa.
All in all, not a book for me. I think maybe younger girls would like it. It just didn't sit with me as a well written book with developed characters. More like one of those tawdry YA romance supernatural novels, like those house of night books. Couldn't even make it through the first book of that series even in high school lol